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Question: Do the changes in the Book of Mormon Isaiah passages reflect a better translation of the underlying Hebrew?
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Question: Do the changes in the Book of Mormon Isaiah passages reflect a better translation of the underlying Hebrew?
Introduction to Question
A couple of critics of the Book of Mormon have claimed that the changes to the Book of Mormon Isaiah passages do not reflect a better translation of the underlying Hebrew. The lack of a better translation is taken as evidence that Joseph Smith was just randomly making changes to the Isaiah text and hoping that noone found out that the translation he produced doesn’t reflect a better translation than other Bibles.
This article seeks to outline what we know about what changes were made to the passages and how we can view them in light of the evidence.
Response to Question
The Changes Themselves
Here are the changes to the Isaiah text in the Book of Mormon that we know about that try to make a substantial change to the meaning of the text. These changes are taken from Book of Mormon Reference Companion (2003) edited by Dennis L. Largey.[1]
The rest of the changes can be found by trowling through Royal Skousen’s Analysis of Textual Variants in the Book of Mormon online.
The vast majority of Book of Mormon changes to Isaiah are on places where italicized text was placed in the King James Bible.[2] Some of these changes do not reflect a better translation of the earliest extant Isaiah source we have today.
The Book of Mormon’s Rendering of Isaiah does not Purport to be the Original Text of Isaiah
It should first be mentioned that the Book of Mormon does not purport to be the original text of Isaiah as composed by Isaiah himself. That is an assumption that readers of the Book of Mormon have brought to the text.
We Do Not Know What the Original Text of Isaiah Was Like
It should next be noted that we do not know what the original text of Isaiah as composed by Isaiah was like. We have early textual witnesses such as the Great Isaiah Scroll (1Qlsa[a]) recovered from the Dead Sea Scrolls, but this is not the original text as composed by Isaiah. We don’t know what the original was like and will likely never know. Thus anyone claiming to know how to judge the Book of Mormon’s rendering of Isaiah based on its fidelity to “the original Hebrew” is acting foolishly and likely tendentiously.
Nephi Likely Changed Wording to Comment on Isaiah
The changes in Isaiah can be thought of to be commentary by Book of Mormon authors. Joseph Spencer at BYU has most persuasively argued that Nephi’s selection and edits of Isaiah are deliberate and that they reflect a coherent theological vision of the scattering and gathering of Israel.[3]
Nephi may have been adding these changes in order to clarify Isaiah’s words, clarify the Lord’s words if Isaiah didn’t communicate them clearly enough, or as Nephi’s independent revelatory (or even non-revelatory) adding to Isaiah based in his then-current theological understanding.
Some of the Changes Do Reflect a Better Translation of the Hebrew
John Tvedtnes has shown that many of the Book of Mormon's translation variants of Isaiah have ancient support.[4]
This throws a huge wrench into any critic's theories that Joseph Smith merely cribbed off of the King James Isaiah.
Some "Problematic" Variants Explained
Critics of the Book of Mormon have pointed to various passages in which the Book of Mormon derives much of its text from KJV Isaiah. These derivations also include some changes from the KJV that vary in their degree of significance. In some cases of these changes, critics allege that the Book of Mormon also changes the wording of the text from the KJV to such an extent that the changes cannot be considered an accurate reflection of the underlying Hebrew. These changes, in turn, become evidence against the notion that the Book of Mormon is a translation of an ancient text. Discussion of these supposed problematic changes has been limited to the Book of Mormon's variants with the KJV Isaiah.
Given the evidence of Nephi's "likening above", much of these variants can actually be considered Nephi's changes and Joseph Smith's accurate translation of Nephi's and not Isaiah's Hebrew. Thus the critics have evidently not considered a theory that could change their assessment of the Book of Mormon's Isaiah and ancient authenticity.
We can explore some of these "problematic variants" pointed to by critics in order to demonstrate that the Book of Mormon variants may fit in with a larger theological project undertaken by Nephi in the Book of Mormon.
| Location in Canon | Erroneous Translation | Passage | Commentary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Isaiah 50:2 ~ 2 Nephi 7:2 | Wherefore as a declarative | "Wherefore when I came, there was no man; when I called, yea there was none to answer. O house of Israel, is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a wilderness and their fish to stink because the waters are dried up and they dieth because of thirst." (Book of Mormon) | David P. Wright states: "The BM inverts the italicized words and reads as a statement rather than a question: "Wherefore, when I came there was no man; when I called, yea, there was none to answer." The BM reading depends on the ambiguity or polysemy of the English "wherefore." In English this word can be an interrogative ("why?") or a conjunction ("therefore"). It is an interrogative in the KJV verse here, translating the Hebrew word maddûac "why?" The BM reading uses "wherefore" as a conjunction, which is not possible for Hebrew maddûac. This reveals the BM's dependence on the English text." He cites Tvedtnes (The Isaiah Variants, 35, 80, 116-117). Wright states that Tvedtnes "thinks that this variant is due to a misunderstanding by Smith or the scribe (apparently the English copiest). The variant must be intentional and from Smith: not only does it involve italicized words, a trigger for change as outlined in this section, the adverb 'yea' also appears in the BM reading. This well fits a change from interrogation to declaration. The variant also appears twice in the passage." |
| 2. Isaiah 51:19 ~ 2 Nephi 8:19 | Sons | "These two sons are come unto thee. Who shall be sorry for thee, thy desolation and destruction and the famine and the sword? And by whom shall I comfort thee." (Book of Mormon) | John A. Tvedtnes writes: "KJV's 'two things' read 'two sons' in BM. MT has simply štym, the feminine numeral 'two'. It is hence not possible to admit that the original read 'sons'. Moreover, the two 'things' are then listed in the same verse as 'desolation and destruction', then reworded as the parallels 'the famine and the sword'. On the surface, the substitution of another word for the one italicized in KJV looks like normal procedure for Joseph Smith, but it could also be a scribal error. The BM change was probably prompted by the fact that vs. 18 ends by speaking 'of all the sons she hath brought up', while vs. 20 begins by speaking of 'thy sons'." (John A. Tvedtnes, The Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon, 87; note: there is no evidence that this is a scribal mistake. Skousen retains “sons”) David P. Wright states: "In one case where the BM has another word for an italicized word, the meaning is significantly changed, but not in accordance with the Hebrew original. The phrase 'These two things are come unto thee' becomes 'These two sons are come unto thee' (Isa 51:19//2 Ne 8:19). This is an extremely unlikely reading for any ancient text since the phrase in Hebrew is formulated in the feminine ($etayim hënnâ qör'ötayik) whereas 'sons' (bänîm) is masculine. The variant in the BM is oblivious to the requirements of Hebrew, and it is doubtful that the Hebrew developed from a masculine to feminine formulation. Smith apparently replaced the italicized word, picking up 'sons' from the context of vv. 18 and 20 which speak of 'sons.'
Interestingly, Joseph Smith, in Old Testament Manuscript 2 (of the Joseph Smith Translation), replaced 'things' with 'sons'. This change was noted by Orson Hyde in a letter dated July 7, 1840:
|
| Isaiah 48:16 ~ 1 Nephi 20:16 | Am | 1 Nephi 20:16 deletes the italicized am in Isaiah 48:16's "from the time that it was, there am I". 1 Nephi 20:16 adds the word "declared" after "from the time that it was", deletes the italicized "am" from "there am I", and changes the phrase "there am I" to the phrase "have I spoken". | Critics charge that the addition of "declared" requires another underlying Hebrew term that would give us that translation in English rather than merely the current term that is rendered as "that it was". Though here, just as with the addition of "have I spoken", the addition clarifies the underlying message of Isaiah and makes smoother the English translation of it. Scholar Brant Gardner proposed that the addition of "have I spoken" was done by Joseph Smith himself.[5] Though one could see the "declared" and "have I spoken" changes as Nephi's edits of Isaiah to clarify Isaiah. We know that Nephi was consciously making edits to Isaiah to clarify Isaiah as well as "liken" (1 Nephi 19:23) Isaiah to his current historical and theological setting. One could also presume that perhaps there is a lost version of Isaiah that was on the brass plates that Joseph Smith eventually translated. Gardner cautions that "from a literary standpoint, ['have I spoken'] removes an important scriptural allusion. The declaration 'there am I' is not just an indication that Yahweh has spoken, as it becomes in the Book of Mormon rendition, but a declaration of the person, power, and reality of the Lord, related thematically to the appellation 'I AM,' since the Lord and the Spirit appear as separate entities (Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55, 295)."[5] Though that allusion is made elsewhere in scripture, and the inclusion of such an illusion in 1 Nephi 20:16 is not necessary. Either way, there doesn't seem to be a huge problem here. |
Conclusion
The Isaiah changes should be no problem for orthodox Latter-day Saints.
Notes
- ↑ Please forgive blurriness from scanning/transmitting the images.
- ↑ Stan Spencer, “Missing Words: King James Bible Italics, The Translation of the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith as an Unlearned Reader,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 38 (2020): 45–106.
- ↑ See Joseph M. Spencer, The Vision of All: 25 Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2016). For a good summary, see BMC Team, “What Vision Guides Nephi’s Choice of Isaiah Chapters?” KnoWhy #38 (February 22, 2016).
- ↑ John A. Tvedtnes, “Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon,” in Isaiah and the Prophets: Inspired Voices from the Old Testament, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1984), 165–78. A critic, David Wright, responded to John Tvedtnes' chapter there. Tvedtnes responds to Wright in John A. Tvedtnes, "Isaiah in the Bible and the Book of Mormon," The FARMS Review 16, no. 2 (2004): 161–72.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Brant H. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 1:394–95.